Pumpcast News, Part 2 – The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

The word comedy is derived from the Greek word “Komoidia” which when translated into modern English, roughly means; “Take my wife… Please!” (1)

While working at Hewlett-Packard (H-P) back in the 1990’s, my manager, Bill, would send me far and wide to do data center installations and upgrades on their server corporate infrastructure. On any given week, Bill would come into my cubicle and say he needed me to fly out to such exotic places as New Jersey or Detroit.

Bill was from NYC, Brooklyn I believe. He was one of the better managers I have experienced in my life. With a penchant for epic speeches, he would motivate the team and then let us loose. You could tell he watched a lot of Patton re-runs with George C. Scott growing up. I kept expecting a wall-sized flag in the background when he stood up to speak.

One day Bill called a meeting and said we had to do an install in Inverness, Scotland. Remember in elementary school, when everyone still wanted to impress or please their teacher. Hands would shoot up trying to get picked. A room full of adults all shot their hands up, squirming in their seats. You could hear the internal dialog going; “Pick me, pick me, me, me, me…”

At any rate, I was one of the guys sent over to do this install. Bill, I forgive you for sending me to New Jersey!

The problem with working in a huge corporate data center, well, pretty much any technology is, you cannot do maintenance or upgrades until everyone goes home. I spent a lot of years working every holiday and weekend making sure the users never noticed we made any changes. The technology elves were hard at work making their lives easier with upgrades, installs, and system movements all supposed to improve their ability to work and communicate effectively. That was the goal anyway.

Flying into a site meant arriving on Thursday, meeting Friday morning to make everyone feel all “warm and fuzzy”. Then doing a weekend long marathon to gut the place, start doing the upgrades or installations, then testing everything you could think of. If you were lucky you went back to the hotel to get some sleep. Usually, you slept in the data center or in the car. Your luggage was all snuggled in your hotel room, you were a techno-zombie trying to remember if you forgot anything in your rush against time.

Monday morning you had to be onsite again for more “warm and fuzzies”, or to get berated for making a mistake. If the upgrade was split over two weekends, you finally got some sleep Monday evening, had a day or two off, then started again for the next weekend marathon.

The real sucky part was, while you were out “having fun” you still had all of your projects and work backing up at your home office. So, getting back was yet another marathon waiting to be tackled. This was not easy money.

On my day off in South Queensferry, Scotland, I took a long drive to see the sights. I visited a bunch of castles. If you are in Scotland, you can see golf courses, distilleries, and castles. You can also eat real haggis. Which is good, because I doubt anyone wants to actually eat artificial haggis (the real stuff is greasy, but pretty good).

The first castle I went to was a pile of rubble with a park ranger sitting outside it. If abandoned rock quarries excite you, you would have loved some of the castles I saw. I struck up a conversation with the ranger who explained a little about the Historic Trust that the UK uses to maintain their heritage sites. Like our park service but with fewer Grizzly bears, and more castles and jewels to protect.

She then told me that the retired CEO of Coca-Cola was just at the site last week. He flew in on a private helicopter to see the site after he purchased the historical title. This was news to me. There was a market for historic titles of nobility? Interesting little fact if I ever get invited to a cocktail party (Note to self, who thought up the word cocktail? Is it a noun or a slang term based on the actual point of the party?).

Note: This was the late 1990’s and some laws have changed, along with Scotland having reached independence (like the Scott’s were ever subdued!).

So, I continued on my marathon visit of historic Scottish castles. My education that day includes the chute where the privy (toilet) emptied out the side of the castle to the ground below. The whole room was made out of stone. Now that was going to wake you up in the morning. There is nothing like a cold Scottish winter and a stone toilet seat to get the blood flowing. Now I know why heated Japanese toilet seats are such a huge seller in the world.

The other thing I learned was living in a castle would be better than living under a tree, but not by much. The rooms were huge, all stone and just damn cold. The fireplaces were massive. You could burn an entire tree inside a castle fireplace and never heat the room. They were inefficient and basically just a comfort for a few feet. Outside of that, and you were going to be wearing heavy robes, and undergarments.

Think of those old black and white movies from the 1930’s where they showed a castle. The designers for the sets actually lived without central heat and new what a room should look like, and what people should be wearing in a cold building for that historical time period. Maybe Katherine Hepburn in Mary of Scotland (1936) would be a good example.

During my tour I came across the Castle Doofus. (This is not correct, but stick with me). That cracked me up when I heard it from the local. The Scottish accent was thick and I had a hard time understanding everything people said. I was going to explain what the US term doofus meant, but that wasn’t going to go over very well. Discretion and trying to remember that I was a guest kept my mouth shut (see Mom, I was listening).

While driving my mind started racing. That was the real title to buy! Who want’s to be any typical lord when you could be introduced as the “Lord of Doofus”.

After making your cash, you would purchase the title, with land if you had to. Then you would start booking a lot of British Airways flights, so you could use your new title. “Yes, I would like to make reservations for The Lord and Lady of Doofus. Yes, I’ll hold…”

When I got back to Colorado, I dug around on the web a little more. That is when I discovered that the 13th amendment to the US Constitution actually prevented U.S. citizens from taking titles of nobility. It was punishable as treason.

Now the history or political science majors are saying, you are full of shineola! Well, yes, I am, but the actual 13th amendment was passed, and ratified.

Current politics, lock on D.C by the attorneys, and Political Correctness keeps this historical fact from being registered. If you are the kind of student who likes pushing your instructors buttons, the next time the teacher says anything about the 13th amendment, the correct response is; “Which one?”

This was yet another interesting cocktail tidbit. Yet my funny-bone wouldn’t let this title thing rest. I kept trying to think of who should own such rare and noble gift. We all have a friend or relative that just cracks us up. We all know at least one person who brings tears to our eyes at every dinner or get-together. Who would you place this title on?

That person would be the kind of person who loved the inside joke. Who was still the child at heart. Who loved to laugh and make others laugh. Someone who could keep a straight face walking through British Customs, showing a passport or ticket with “The Lord of Doofus” on it. Seeing them walking into a dinner reservation, being announced by their title, and just playing it straight. Only the American’s in the room would get the joke.

Yet, this title was unique in the world. Any old friend or relative may not do. I tried to picture famous comedians that could pull this off. I kept picturing someone like Lucille Ball, Jerry Lewis or Steve Martin. This title should pass down from one comedian to another like a Nobel Prize. They could turn it over to a new deserving comedian every February 29th. The person selected should be one that makes people laugh in a positive way. After all, they would be ambassadors of humor in a sense.

Finally, while I was back in Colorado, someone of Scottish decent pointed out to me that the clan name was Duffus, pronounced “Duff – us”. With the Scottish accent, I misunderstood what they had said. So, I guess that makes me the Lord of “Doo-fus” after all…